PortCastelló has hosted tests by the Centre for Research in Robotics and Underwater Technologies (CIRTESU) of Universitat Jaume I, combining the coordinated use of surface and underwater robots for marine environment inspection.
The research is part of the collaboration agreement signed in July 2024 between both entities to conduct experimental tests of the technology they are developing in different publicly funded research projects.
This test integrates the control of several robots and the simultaneous localization of surface and underwater environments to improve inspection, maintenance, and repair operations of marine infrastructure. The system allows for inspections in hard-to-reach marine areas under remote human supervision, increasing safety and reducing the need for direct intervention in future maintenance and repair tasks.
This project studies the combined use of an autonomous surface robot and an underwater robot for inspection, maintenance, and repair tasks of marine infrastructure.
The experiment validated the multi-robot control algorithm that coordinates both platforms and localized the underwater robot in real-time from the surface robot. To do this, the system combines two 3D LiDAR sensors and information from the robots' navigation sensors.
The integration of this data is carried out using SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) techniques, which allow for the localization of the robots while incrementally building a map of the environment.
The innovation developed by CIRTESU jointly addresses surface SLAM and underwater SLAM, so that the human operator supervising the mission has a unique and updated representation of the position of both platforms and the relevant elements of the scenario.
It should be noted that since the signing of the agreement, different tests have been carried out focusing on autonomous navigation, underwater inspection, robotic intervention, bathymetry, and wireless underwater communications.
